KY Dems Reject Austerity, Prove Bevin's Budget is Bullshit

Democrats in the Kentucky House aren't falling for the old "shared sacrifice" budget con; they know that repugs always mean the poor and working class sacrifice while the rich pocket yet more profits.

Adam Beam at AP:

Kentucky House Democrats used their reinforced majority to reject nearly half of Republican Gov. Matt Bevin's budget cuts Tuesday while still managing to fully fund required contributions to the state's struggling public pension systems without borrowing money.

The House Appropriations and Revenue committee approved a two-year state spending plan Tuesday, with the full House scheduled to vote on the plan Wednesday. Most Republicans on the committee voted "pass," meaning they did not vote for or against the bill. Rep. Jim Stewart of Flat Lick was the only Republican to vote "yes."

Bevin, the state's second Republican governor in four decades, quickly declared the state was in a financial disaster less than two months after taking office and called for $650 million in spending cuts in his first budget proposal. The reductions included a 4.5 percent cut this year and 9 percent cuts in each of the next two years, with a lot of that money coming from the state's public colleges and universities.

College presidents revolted, calling the cuts "draconian" and warning about massive tuition increases, program cuts and, in one instance, possible closure if the cuts were approved. Bevin did not relent, telling a crowd of community college supporters in the Capitol rotunda that "the cuts have to come from somewhere" and declaring as recently as last week he would not sign a budget that did not include the cuts.

But Democrats ran against Bevin's budget cuts in a series of special elections last week, winning three of the four seats to give them a 53-47 majority in the House. It takes 51 votes to pass a budget. Tuesday, they rejected all of Bevin's cuts to colleges and universities.

How Matt Bevin's Austerity Budget Will Destroy Kentucky

Just like austerity budgets from faux-libertarian conservative liars have destroyed Kansas and Louisiana and entire nations in Europe.  But the obscenely wealthy are even fatter while desperate workers submit to serfdom, so: win!

When Governor Lying Coward talks about "shared sacrifice" and "tough love," remember that neither he nor any of his billionaire buddies are going to be sacrificing anything or feeling any kind of love but the cock-sucking of more tax cuts.

Dave Johnson at Crooks and Liars:

Many say we should "run government like a business" and "save money" by "cutting spending" and "making government smaller." Does this work? Do We the People really save money by doing these things?

Infrastructure

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After the Reagan tax cuts we "made government smaller" in several ways that are coming back to bite us now. One way we "saved money" by not "changing the oil" was by deferring maintenance of the country's infrastructure – the water systems, levees, dams, roads, bridges, airports, ports, rails systems, electrical systems, and the rest of the things we all rely on to bring us safe water, get us to work, ship products and generally move our economy and live our lives.

Now the American Society of Civil Engineers' (ASCE) most recent "Infrastructure Report Card" estimates we need to spend $3.6 trillion just to bring the infrastructure up to where it should be, never mind catching up to the rest of the word with high-speed rail and smart electrical grid systems. The bill is getting more expensive every year, and people are dying as bridges, roads and other important infrastructure components fail. Thousands died in New Orleans when the levees failed.

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Flint

The Flint tragedy shows how much money "big government" actually saves us.

Michigan Republicans tried to "save money," "make government smaller" and run the city of Flint "like a business." Thousands of human beings ended up being poisoned. Now someone is going to have to pay to cover the health care needs of all those people. That someone might be the people themselves or maybe all of us will pitch in through our government, but a cost is a cost.

Someone will need to cover either the remedial education cost for all the kids whose brains were affected by lead, or the societal costs if this is not done. Then there is the cost to replace Flint's water pipes, the cost of plunging property values, the cost of all the businesses that will choose to leave or not locate in Flint.

Costs, costs, costs, some borne by government, most borne by individuals but costs nonetheless – because Republicans said we should "run government like a business" and "save money."

Flint shows how basic government spending saves all of us from paying the enormous costs of living with the danger of unsafe water.

Cutting Senior Nutrition Programs

The post "Here's A Sequester Cut You'll Feel In Your Gut" described the results from budget cuts forced by Republicans wanting to make government "smaller." The "sequester" cuts in senior nutritional programs caused seniors to need to be hospitalized for malnutrition – which costs government a tremendous amount more than the "savings" from cutting.

[F]or all the damage these cruel cuts do to actual, real people, they don’t even actually “cut” spending, they increase spending. Because doing cruel things to actual, real people leads to cruel results.

If government "saves money" by cutting nutritional programs, government ends up paying a lot of money to treat malnutrition. If government won't pay those costs because it is "saving money" by denying health care services those costs don't go away, they are just shifted onto individuals. The affected people have to pay, one way or another, with their money or their health. The communities they live in have to pay as its members suffer or become impoverished.

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Privatization

Local, state and Federally, government "save money" by privatizing services and selling buildings and other assets. But studies have shown what really happens when governments "save money" by privatizing.

What really happens when, say, a city "saves money" by privatizing, for example, its waste pickup services? The current employees, paid an OK salary, probably with good benefits, are laid off. The contractor hires people at low or minimum wage with few or no benefits. The business "saves money" by cutting back on personnel costs, services and maintenance of equipment.

The former city employees, if they can find jobs at all, will be paid very little, homes go into foreclosure – which lowers property values citywide. They stop being able to do much shopping, hurting the local economy. They likely will need public assistance, which means costs were shifted to another branch of government instead of being "saved." Their kids will need special services in the schools, as poor kids often do. And on it goes. Of course, they are no longer paying taxes.

Meanwhile the new workers won't be paid enough to purchase homes, do much shopping, or pay much in taxes. They probably will qualify for public assistance; their kids will need special attention in the schools.

The privatization scheme forces people into poverty and onto public assistance, eroding the tax base, forcing local wages and property values down and generally putting all of us further under the thumb of those who have convinced people who “private companies always do everything better than government.” The contractor companies are often specialists in avoiding taxation themselves. One thing private companies are good at is driving every benefit of our economy upwards to a concentrated and privileged few.

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Cost Shifting

Running government like a business doesn't take something important into account: Businesses try to shift costs onto others. When government "saves money" by cutting budgets the costs are still there, but they are shifted onto individuals. And often the total cost paid by all those individuals is much higher than if government took care of things, because of the rule of economy of scale as well as the government's negotiating power.

For example, government can "save money" by not funding a fire department, and not having a fire inspector. Of course, many of us will have to spend a lot of our own money to either pay for our own fire protection or risk the cost to rebuild our houses. And all of us would have to spend a lot of money if the whole town burns down. But hey, we "saved money" not paying for a fire department.

What about government "saving money" by cutting back on education budgets? Not only does this hurt local businesses, but property values are higher when there are "good schools" nearby. So the cost is shifted onto the businesses and individuals, when you "run government like a business." Because that's what businesses do.

Shifting costs from government onto the rest of us actually costs us more money than we save on taxes.

What Is Government's Job?

What is our government for? Is it to operate like a business and make a profit off of We the People? Or is it a mechanism for all of us to decide to get together to do things that make our lives better?

If government cuts corners, tries to do things "on the cheap" like a business, we end up with results that cost more than we would have paid to do something right. When government "saves money" by shifting costs onto individuals, economies of scale and negotiating power are lost and aggregate costs go up, like what has happened in our health care system. And government cutting corners often leads to bad, even cruel results in people's lives.

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There is often a good reason for those "big government" budgets.

Matt Bevin Doesn't Know What the Fuck He Is Doing, Part 16

The repugs do it every time, and voters never learn: tax cuts mean service cuts.

From Zandar:

Bevin's proposed tax cuts are running into reality.

Meanwhile the state’s new Medicaid commissioner said that the cost of the Medicaid program — one of the largest expenditures in the budget —will cost about 20 percent more over the next two years, rising to over $3.7 billion

Rep. Jim Wayne, another Louisville Democrat, said that the state could afford these programs and more if it revised its tax system.

“If people who are as wealthy as the governor would pay their fair share in state and local taxes, we know that these type of programs could easily be sustainable,” Wayne said.

So either Bevin gets his tax cuts, or he'll throw 20% of state Medicaid people off the rolls.  Guess which one this sudden change of state benefits in two weeks to an all online site does in a state with one of the lowest percentages of home internet use in America?

 Find out where Kentucky tax dollars really come from and where they go.

And find out how you can support a tax reform plan that is fair and feasible.

Although probably not feasible as long as Governor Lying Coward is in office.

The Fuck-It Budget: Matt Bevin Doesn't Know What the Fuck He's Doing, Part Twelve

When you have no ideas other than ugh gubmint baaaaaaaad, and you're too ignorant and lazy to actually figure out how to fund public services in the most effective way, you just demand across-the-board cuts, demonize state workers and call it a day.

Tom Loftus at the Courier:

Gov. Matt Bevin on Tuesday night proposed increasing funding for beleaguered state pension funds by more than a billion dollars over the next two years,  finding most of that money by slashing funding to most state agencies by 9 percent.

"We cannot move forward unless we address the crippling debt that faces this state. And that's really the crux of what we're here to talk about tonight," Bevin said of the more than $30 billion in unfunded liabilities in state pension funds during a speech to a joint session of the legislature that lasted an hour and eight minutes.

Bevin's first speech to the legislature outlined a proposed two-year state budget that is true to his campaign promises to cut the size of government and address the pension funding crisis.

"We've got to take immediate action," Bevin said. "Because to continue to ignore our financial problems is no longer an option. It just isn't."

 Forty years of budget cutting, and repugs still refuse to acknowledge the facts that it always - always - hurts the economy.  Calling for cuts is ignoring out financial problems, which start with a state tax structure that subsidizes the rich and decomposing industries like coal and punishes working people.

Kentucky's not going to crawl out of its financial problems until the governor and legislature makes corporations and the rich pay their fair share of taxes - and pay back the billions they've stolen from actual taxpayers over the last 40 years.

Here's a prediction for you: when agencies scream that they can't cut their budget's 9 percent without shutting their doors, Bevin's going to tell them to turn the services over the private contractors, and oh, hey, look, here's a list of my personal billionaire friends who'd be happy to take that budget off your hands.

Because once state government is in the hands of corporate criminals like Corrections Corporation of America, those 9 percent cuts are going to mysteriously disappear while the cost of providing services escalates.

Welcome to Haiti on the Ohio.

KY Senate Repugs Find Another Way to Kill the Bitches

Because cancer screenings just make them think their lives might have value, and we know where that leads.

And of course they cited the fake abortion videos and of course they lied about Planned Parenthood so hard their tongues caught on fire.

John Cheves at the Herald:

A Senate committee overwhelmingly approved a bill Thursday intended to end state funding for family planning and women’s health services at Planned Parenthood clinics in Lexington and Louisville, which this fiscal year totaled $331,309.

Republican Sen. Max Wise of Campbellsville, sponsor of Senate Bill 7, said he was moved to act by “Planned Parenthood’s notorious history as an abortion provider.” None of Kentucky’s Planned Parenthood clinics provide abortions. But Wise’s bill seeks to block funding to clinics that offer abortion “referrals” or “counseling,” as Planned Parenthood does in the state.

SNIP
SB 7 proceeds to the Republican-led Senate, which is expected to pass it. The Democratic-led House traditionally has blocked bills that would restrict women’s access to abortion. House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, said Thursday that he has not reviewed Wise’s bill or a similar bill filed by House Republicans, so he had no comment.

Critics warned Thursday that Wise’s bill could imperil the $5.6 million the federal government gives to Kentucky annually in “Title X funds” for family planning and women’s health services at local health departments and other health clinics. The two Planned Parenthood clinics in Lexington and Louisville share in that funding.

Federal law requires that pregnant women served by Title X funds have the opportunity to hear medical information about abortion, including the “risks and benefits.” Other Title X services include birth control, pregnancy testing and counseling, examinations for sexually transmitted diseases and breast and cervical cancer screening.

Cutting Title X programs for low-income women to spite Planned Parenthood would lead to more unintended pregnancies in Kentucky, among many other health problems, said Derek Selznick, director of the Kentucky ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project.

“Essentially, they want to take away funds that prevent 6,000 abortions a year,” Selznick said.

Ashlee Bergin, a Louisville obstetrician-gynecologist, told the Senate committee that SB 7 is “bad medicine.”

“The legislature must not interfere with the doctor-patient relationship by dictating what health care information can be shared,” Bergin said. “My patients must be able to make medical decisions with knowledge of all options, and based on what’s right for themselves and their families.”